Otis and Louie went on TV today to help promote the 2015 Easter Egg Hunt for Dogs. The event will take place at 2:00 pm at the Egglawn located within Parklands of Floyd, and will be followed by fun games for the dogs. The cost to participate will be $10, with the proceeds going to Furever Friends and Transport, one of the organizations that we foster animals for.

On a rainy, dreary day like today, we like to use an adventure box as one of the ways to keep our dogs’ minds stimulated and the dogs out of trouble. An adventure box is essentially a card board box filled with wadded up newspaper, toilet paper and/or paper towel rolls. We randomly distribute their dry food in the box and the rolls and add a “prize”. This “prize” is an interactive toy filled with a tasty treat, or peanut butter. Using an adventure box helps in various ways:

Dogs get to forage for their food, which is what they would do in their natural environment

The dogs are using their brain to find their food, which helps in curbing their level of energy

It keeps dogs from inhaling their food

It can help timid dogs in building confidence

Here is a short video of Otis working on his adventure box for breakfast this morning. Once he finished getting all of the dry food out, he started working on his “prize”, which took another 10 minutes for him. Using this adventure box turned breakfast from taking less than 1 minute to about 15 minutes. Yes!

Over the last few days, I have been consulted with on cases involving door darting. In one instance, the dog snuck out of the front door and disappeared (and was later safely returned) and in the other instance, the dog bolted through the door and bit someone in front of the house.

Both dogs were under socialized and had little impulse control at the door.

Teaching the dogs to wait at the door may have helped in the prevention of these incidents. We do our best to socialize our dogs on a continuous basis, and we usually train our dogs to wait at the front door. They are required to sit and wait until we invite them to go through the door. We also cover waiting at the door in our basic obedience classes.

I’m interested in finding out how do you handle these types of situations?